Health and Temperance by John Ellis, M. D.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 6, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 17.

Health and Temperance.

By John Ellis, M. D.

IS IT NOT SIN?

Does any Christian man say that it is not a sin to indulge in the unnecessary habits of drinking intoxicating drinks, smoking and chewing tobacco or opium, and tight dressing?—all of which impair health, and even the vitality of the children born, and cause so much unhappiness and suffering, and often rapidly destroy life, and, as statistics show, shorten materially the average duration of human life. Are such courses of life no violation of the divine command, "Thou shalt not kill!"? Is it no violation of the command to love our wife, children, and neighbor, to drink intoxicants which we well know may bring wretchedness and sorrow untold to all whom we should hold most dear? Is it no violation of the divine commandments to pollute the atmosphere which wife, child, friends, neighbors, and even strangers within our gates are obliged to breathe, by puffing into it the nauseous smoke of tobacco, which, according to the testimony of some observers, occasionally destroys the life of infants? Is it no violation of the divine commandments for women by tight dressing to prevent the development of the body, and to cause the most serious displacement of organs, and the greatest deformity of the body, until they are not able to bear well-developed and healthy children, and to nurse them successfully, until the very existence of the native American race is threatened? Gentle reader, look at the frail, deformed, nervous, delicate, sickly American women around you, and at their puny, imperfectly developed, sickly, and dying children, and at the suffering, unhappiness, poverty, and discomforts which result from such evil habits, . . . and say, if you can, that the unnecessary indulgence in habits which produce such shocking results is not a sin against God and a violation of the commands to love the Lord with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves, instead of being ruled by perverted appetites and vanity.

According to the testimony of physicians having in charge the insane in our public institutions, more than one-third of the cases of insanity which exist have been caused by the use of intoxicants; and the writer will make the prediction that the day is not far distant when it will be found that not less than another third of the cases which exist among men, are caused by the use of tobacco, and no inconsiderable number of both sexes by the use of tea and coffee; and at least one-third of the cases which exist among women are caused by tight dressing and habits of idleness, and consequent discontent and nervousness. Then we have only to look at the mental anxiety, disappointment, mortification, and poverty which result from the above evil habits, to account for a large portion of the remaining cases of insanity, excepting perhaps a few cases where there is a strong hereditary tendency, and correct habits of life would unquestionably overcome even such a tendency in most cases. For life from the Lord flows in most abundantly into all who repent and are striving to live orderly lives.—John Ellis, M. D.